Inspiration

© Jijé, 2021

On January 14th, this drawing by Jijé was sold at an auction at Artcurial in Paris – the same auction where a 1936 sketch by Hergé for the cover of ‘Le Lotus Bleu’ was sold for a record breaking 3.2 million euros. The Jijé drawing was sold for a bit less: 5460 euros.

© Jijé, 2021

The drawing was used for the title page of the ‘Blondin & Cirage’ album ‘Kamiliola’, that was published in 1954.

The Jijé drawing made me think of the iconic cover for ‘À la recherche de Peter Pan’. Knowing that Cosey is an admirer of the works of Jijé, I asked him if he knew the cover. Cosey: ‘I still am a fan of Jijé. His powerful lines – both strong and elegant – like on this cover drawing [Cosey didn’t know that it wasn’t a cover drawing, but a title page drawing] . One can regret that Jijé abandoned his humouristic style, which he mastered just as well as his realistic style. Even if his graphics have inspired me, I had forgotten this cover when I made ‘Peter Pan’.’

In the same e-mail, Cosey mentions two other inspirations that played a role when he made ‘À la recherche de Peter Pan’.

© Samivel 2021

The first one is Samivel, pen name of Paul Gayet-Tancrède (1907-1992), a french artist who was active in many branches of the arts: writing, poetry, illustration, graphic design, photography, film and theatre. He made these snowy mountain landscapes – I think the inspiration is obvious.

Hiroshige

The second source of inspiration that Cosey mentions is Hiroshige, the famous Japanese woodblock printer (see also some examples of Japanese woodprints and Cosey in my article about ‘Atsuko‘). Among his landscape prints, you will find many snowy landscapes. If you look at the second landscape above, you see a perfect illustration of what Cosey has told many times about drawing snow: you don’t draw snow, you just draw everything that is not snow.


Thanks to Cosey